Work-in-Progress talk by Timothy Williams, History, University of Oregon

"This book project is a cultural history of prisoners of war and the literature they wrote and published during the era of the U.S. Civil War. It focuses on southern men held in northern prisons. These men played important roles in developing a unique genre of southern history commonly called the “Lost Cause,” which at once exalts southern military leadership and outlines southerners’ justifications for secession, slavery, and white supremacy. Their stories illustrate how this pernicious regional history took shape. In the process, it also reveals insight into wartime carceral culture and its impact on authorship and readership in the twentieth century."